What if an electoral college chose the College Football Playoff field?
By John Scimeca
Imagine a restructured electoral college that chooses the College Football Playoff field or national champion. Ready, go.
The Electoral College is the semi-confusing way that the United States elects a president every four years. It’s based on the population of each state, determining the number of delegates who will cast their votes for the president.
What would this system look like in determining each year’s College Football Playoff? Electoral votes per state could be apportioned not just by mere numbers of people, or even of fans, players, or high school recruits. The college football electoral college that I propose, though admittedly redundant in name, would apportion electoral votes based on Division I NCAA football success.
Just like the real electoral college, which adjusts the number of delegates from each state based on the results of the once-a-decade U.S. census count, this CFB electoral college would change. In this proposal, the number of votes/delegates changes each year.
I created a map that divides 435 electoral votes based on seven categories: the number of FBS and FCS teams, the number of FBS conference champions from the past decade, the number of College Football Playoff finalists from the past six years, the FCS national champions from the past decade, the last decade’s Heisman Trophy winners, and the 24 most well-attended stadiums from the most recent season.
All 50 U.S. states and D.C. are eligible to receive and cast these electoral votes.